The Medium Rules: Long-Term Trends in Media and Technology

On this episode of The Medium Rules, I sit down with James Heckman to discuss his business philosophy animating Maven, as well as a look back at James' career to date. Maven styles itself as a technology solution for publishers, centralizing and optimizing virtually all functions of a publishing business, from sales and marketing all the way through to legal and finance. And Maven is roughly modeled on two prior ventures founded by James, Rivals and Scouts, both sports-based publishing properties based on a similar “hub-and-spoke” approach to the publishing business in a digitally-native world. In this wide-ranging, informative and engaging conversation, James and I cover prior successes and failures, James' keys to success (net: strong team, reliable investors and high-quality partners), and what the future holds for Maven and the various brands it now owns and/or controls. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For this episode of The Medium Rules, the first of 2020, we decided to delve into the headlines and take an in-depth look at the impeachment trial of President Trump in the US Senate from a trial lawyer's perspective. For this discussion I'm joined by two of my HBA colleagues: our head of litigation, Adam Michaels, and Partner Mike Norton, a former Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District who worked under Rudy Giuliani. We examine, among other topics, the concept of the Senate functioning as both judge and jury, the role and function of the media, the rules of evidence, the “presiding” role and function of Chief Justice Roberts (and what we might expect from Roberts in the coming days and weeks), and how all of these variables influence how a trial lawyer might approach the impeachment trial both as prosecution and defense. We hope you tune in, watch and listen to this important conversation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sometimes the biggest startup ideas are sitting right under our noses until somebody decides to just pick up and build the company. This is the case with Carta, which took an obvious pain point, the management of private company capitalization tables, and built a unicorn business. On the final episode of The Medium Rules for 2019, I sat down with Tim Gunderson, VP Products at Carta, to discuss how Carta took what might have seemed like a straightforward problem, built a simple cloud-based solution, and grew a company to a valuation of $1.7 billion (and counting!). In addition to great tech, the ubiquity of the cloud, a great founder and a great team, the magic insight here lies to a great extent in network effects: startups (in many cases with a not-so-gentle nudge from startup counsel!) go on the platform to reduce friction associated with cap table management, fund investors start to see the benefit of a high-level view of all of their portfolio investments and also urge companies to be on Carta, and finally fund LP's are also pulled into the network to be able to easily view fund performance from the bottom up. We hope you tune in, watch and listen to this very lively season-ending episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How do you crack the code on effectively messaging political advocacy on social media? What is the right tone, what are the right platforms, and what is the right targeting? One organization that seems to be nailing this challenge is the progressive, grassroots political advocacy organization, Swing Left.Swing Left was founded in the wake of the 2016 Presidential election. The initial, basic idea was to develop a tool by which individuals could plug their zip code into Swing Left's website and quickly locate the nearest US House district whose seat was, in 2016, decided by a small margin and might be “flappable” from red to blue in the 2018 midterms. So the idea was to identify the “swing seats” in the 2018 midterm elections and to mobilize volunteers to help flip the US House of Representatives from Republican to Democrat. In and around this advocacy, Swing Left developed a highly visible social media campaign mixing in voters and volunteers with influencers and celebrities, all in service to Swing Left's ambitious activist swing seat agenda. Those short videos with celebrities each speaking a line or two telling you how to vote? That was Swing Left. And, as we know, the 2018 midterms were a historic blue wave, particularly with respect to the House, and many observers credited Swing Left as a significant factor. In other words, mission accomplished. On this episode of The Medium Rules, Alan sits down with Michelle Finocchi and Marc Smrikarov, respectively the Chief Marketing Officer and the Head of Communications of Swing Left, for a discussion around Swing Left's highly successful media strategy leading up to 2018 and, of more moment, and how it is thinking about creating and deploying media in the months leading up to 2020. We cover the shifting political landscape since the 2018 mid-terms, how Swing Left is evolving its advocacy for a Presidential cycle, its priorities for the coming cycle, as well as how Swing Left is developing and deploying technology in service of advocacy. We hope you tune in, listen and watch this very interesting episode by a group that represents some of the most skilled advocacy entrepreneurs in the country. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The explosion of so-called programmatic advertising over the past decade is one of those technological phenomena that has had so many and so varied a set of seismic second-order effects that we almost take it for granted that the world of interactive advertising was always so. Not the case. Consider this quote, which now reads as charmingly quaint, from the April 14, 2007 New York Times article announcing the sale of DoubleClick to Google: “DoubleClick's chief executive, David Rosenblatt, said a few weeks ago that a new system it had developed for the buying and selling of online ads would probably become the chief money maker within five years. The system, a Nasdaq-like exchange for online ads, brings Web publishers and advertising buyers together on a Web site where they can participate in auctions for ad space.” As it turned out, the acquisition of DoubleClick by Google has turned to be one of, if not the single-most consequential acquisition by any tech company in history as it relates to the publishing web and the business of online advertising. On this episode The Medium Rules I sit down with Michael Rubenstein, the President of AppNexus, for a conversation tracing the origins and history of electronic exchanges for buying and selling digital advertising inventory. Michael takes us through his experiences working on the first ad exchange developed at DoubleClick, the decision-making process in connection with the sale of DoubleClick to Google, and then his decision to leave Google for another startup, AppNexus. Of course, AppNexus went on to become the biggest and most successful independent ad exchange out there, and Michael discusses the growth of AppNexus, it's various strategic decisions along the way, the competitive pressures as programmatic advertising in effect swallowed the industry, and finally the process and logic in selling to AT&T. In the process of walking through all of this history, Michael ends up delivering a master class in current and future trends with respect to the media business. This episode is a true must-listen piece of content which we hope you will enjoy watching and listening as much as we enjoyed in the taping. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With the explosion of podcasts and podcasting in recent years (there are 700,000 podcasts and counting, according to The New York Times), podcasting has become big business. In addition, there has been a recent spate of headline-grabbing podcast M&A activity, signaling that this new, highly intimate form of media is still in its early stages. However, the industry is struggling to find an advertising model that matches the growth and popularity of this new medium. Listener data is both very difficult to obtain and fragmented among the various industry participants, as a result of which ad-targeting, and CPMs, remain low. Enter Podsights, a podcast analytics and attribution company co-founded by industry veterans Sean Creeley and Andy Pellett, which seeks to work with both the supply and demand side of the podcasting advertising business (call it “podtech”) to optimize both yield, on the one hand, and conversions on the other. Prior to co-founding Podsights, Sean founded a web attribution and analytics company by the name of Embedly, with Andy as his chief engineer. Embedly was sold to Medium Corporation in 2016.On this episode of The Medium Rules, Sean and Andy walk us through the various players in the podcast ecosystem, from the players to the hosting companies to the producers/creators to the brands and to the analytics companies in between. We talk about some of the newer entrants, such as Luminary, and we also discuss the current M&A environment, what the future might bring, and who will be the winners and the losers going forward.We hope you tune in, listen and watch this chatty and informative episode with Sean & Andy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The past 15 years have seen the cooking show move from niche, daytime and educational “good for you” programming to the center of mainstream American entertainment. This has fueled the rise of the celebrity chef and, it's cousin, the rise of the TV chef. The beating heart of this explosion is the food competition show, principally among them “Top Chef”, but also “Hell's Kitchen”, “Iron Chef”, “Masterchef” and a host of others which have proliferated on network and cable television dials at a dizzying pace. Enter the streaming services, and this trend has only accelerated with shows like “Nailed It” and “Sugar Rush”. And this says nothing of the kids competition shows, chief among them “Masterchef Junior”. At the same time, food media has taken a life of its own on social media, from Instagramming cooking and dining, to “maker” videos on YouTube, to food and restaurant blogs, and on and on. In a nutshell, food and cooking are pretty much everywhere at all times, everyone is a critic, and everyone is a chef. On this episode of The Medium Rules, host Alan Baldachin is joined by Gail Simmons, who as a judge on Bravo's Top Chef throughout its fifteen season run (and still going strong) has become a household name in both the United States and her native Canada. Gail and Alan discuss the origins of Gail's interest in cooking, her background as a trained chef and food writer, her stint working for Daniel Boulud, and of course her tenure on Top Chef where she continues to reign alongside Padma Lakshmi and Tom Colicchio. We also discuss how the proliferation of food media has changed the way people think about the culinary arts, and how cooking and eating have themselves been transformed.We hope you tune in, listen and watch this chatty and informative episode with Gail. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last November, after an extended RFP bidding process involving initially 280 cities, narrowed down to twenty “finalists”, Amazon announced Long Island City in Queens, New York as its “HQ2” winner. New York's agreements with Amazon guaranteed $27 billion in revenue for New York with $3 billion returned to Amazon in tax credits. In February of this year, however, on Valentine's Day no less (slightly tone deaf!), Amazon abruptly canceled its plans entirely and reversed course, citing mounting criticism it received from state and local politicians, activists and community groups in and around Long Island City. The main arguments from the so-called resistance were that it would cause housing costs to skyrocket, drive out low-income residents and worsen congestion on the subway and streets. Others have distilled the story into three categories: (1) subsidies/corporate giveaways, (2) secrecy and backroom dealings and (3) corporate social responsibility and corporate behavior. On this episode of The Medium Rules, host Alan Baldachin is joined by Ari Wallach and Duff McDonald with a view to dissecting the various causes and effects, both short and long-term, implicated and exposed by the Amazon HQ2 debacle. Is this a story of corporate greed and Albany arrogance finally getting their respective comeuppance? Or, was the turning back of Amazon HQ2 an ahistorical blunder of epic proportions? How much should we care about community preservation, or is this just a nostalgic fever dream of a very vocal, activist minority? To what extent are we required to extrapolate the Amazon HQ2 into broader American political and social currents tracing back to Occupy Wall Street and the rise of the new left, or is the story much more localized in nature? Ari Wallach is the founder and CEO of Longpath Labs. We had the pleasure to connect with Ari for our very first episode of The Medium Rules last June. Longpath Labs is a 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to promote and advocate long-term modes of thinking, synthesizing and responding to humanity's greatest long-term challenges. Duff McDonald is a first timer on The Medium Rules. Duff is a New York-based journalist and is the author, most recently, of The New York Times bestsellers The Golden Passport and The Firm. A long-time magazine writer, Duff has written for The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, Esquire, Fortune, Business Week, Wired, Time, and other publications. Duff wrote the book review for the New York Times on Brad Stone's essential book on Amazon, The Everything Store. Duff is currently working on a book with Christiane Lemiuex about what makes entrepreneurs tick – Christiane is the founder and CEO of The Inside and a previous guest on The Medium Rules. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The twin challenges of both monetizing content and managing the transition from a print-dominated world to a digital-dominated world are not for the faint of heart. For some, the scale and scope of this challenge would be at best daunting and, at worst, induce a level of anxiety and paralysis that would make many if not most media executives sprint in the opposite direction. Yet this is exactly the challenge that Troy Young took on when he stepped into the role of President of Hearst Magazines in November, 2018. On this episode of The Medium Rules I sit down with Troy to discuss his take on the media landscape as it pertains to Hearst's incredible collection of brand titles and his game plan to transform Hearst from a print to an online content and publishing powerhouse for the 21stCentury. We cover Troy's background growing up in Western Canada, his journey from the agency world in Toronto in the nineties to working in NYC and eventually becoming CEO of Say Media, and then moving to Hearst in 2013 as Global President, Digital. In that role and under Troy's leadership Hearst increased its aggregate traffic across Hearst's digital properties from 63 million visitors/month to 108 million. In 2015, Troy was named Adweek's Magazine Executive of the Year, an honor that recognized him for unifying Hearst's “print and digital brands into a single, well-oiled machine whose traffic has surged”, and for his development of MediaOS, "a combined CMS, ad sales and data strategy tool for all Hearst properties.” As an added bonus, Troy gives us his Top 5 desert island vinyl picks, a few of which might surprise! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If there was one area of the consumer economy that you may have thought might be impervious to the “direct-to-consumer” disruption of the past several years, good chance it would have been the home renovation market. Yet this high degree of difficulty also creates opportunity. On this episode of The Medium Rules, I sit down with JasperMalcolmson, co-founder and CEO of the digitally-native home renovation platform Skylight. By working with Skylight, homeowners can design, bid, project manage and pay for home renovations all through Skylight's online toolset. Most notably, once a homeowner's construction budget is locked, homeowners are protected from cost overruns through Skylight's innovative “fully fixed pricing” guarantee. Prior to Skylight, Jasper founded the beloved local offers business Bloomspot, sold to Chase in 2012, and then Jasper stayed with Chase for 3 years as head of product at ChaseNet, Chase's payments platform. Previously, Jasper ran several business units at Yahoo!, principally under the leadership of Terry Semel. We talk to Jasper about working for Yahoo! in the early 2000's, competing in the local offers space, his experience selling to Chase, and about the ambitions and challenges of Skylight amid the current startup climate in Silicon Valley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One of the more intractable problems with cryptocurrency is also one of the most basic: how do you keep digital assets on the blockchain secure? This is an issue of hacks and honeypots. But, as evidenced by the recent news that the Canadian cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX may have lost $140 million in cryptocurrency when its founder died in December and took with him the only available electronic keys to the exchange's crypto vault, the issue is not related solely to nefarious activity. On this episode of The Medium Rules host Alan Baldachin sits down with Demotrios Skalkotos, GM of Ledger's North American business and head of Ledger's institutional ledger vault product, and, by phone, Zach Hamilton, founder and CEO of Airfoil Capital. Alan, Demo and Zach engage in a detailed, informative discussion regarding the extremely difficult challenge of fully securing digital assets. The group walks through the current landscape of security solutions, the distinction between security and custody and why one would want a self-managed security solution, and, finally, the dream of a “zero-trust” future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you stop and think about it, the category of home furnishings and home design is one of the most daunting to take online. As much as we have come to take the success of companies like Wayfair and One King's Lane for granted, think of the logistics involved in a digitally native business that sells sofas, dining room tables and beds. And what about white glove service, damages and returns. Complicating things, any home furnishings retailer is required to serve two masters: the trade and the retail consumer. To put it mildly, not for the faint of heart. On this episode of The Medium Rules, host Alan Baldachin sits down with Christiane Lemieux, founder and CEO of The Inside, the direct-to-consumer home furnishings brand focused on made-to-order, customizable, affordable furniture with a high design, contemporary aesthetic. Prior to starting The Inside, Christiane founded the extremely popular home furnishings/lifestyle brand Dwell Studios, sold to Wayfair in 2013. Alan and Christiane engage in an entertaining, informative and lively conversation in which they go deep under the hood of the current online retail environment for home furnishings, covering logistics, media, customer acquisition and design. Christiane also walks through the highs and lows of her 20+ year career as a design entrepreneur, author and philanthropist, including her start as a curator for the landmark 90's home furnishings brand Portico, through the founding of Dwell and its sale to Wayfair, her time at Wayfair and lessons learned, and finally to the launch of The Inside in 2016 in collaboration with Kirsten Green and the team at Forerunner Ventures. Christiane also talks about her new book project on entrepreneurship and what makes entrepreneurs tick. We hope you'll tune in, listen and watch this great conversation.Find the the full video interview at: https://youtu.be/4ha5mbYMZCEBe sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL4dksGw2Iagf3F2jUPLorg?app=desktop Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What exactly is a security token? How is it expressed on the blockchain? How is it traded? Why is a security token better than an electronic share? What are the downsides? And, beyond all that, what are the limits of tokenization? And what are the political and philosophical implications? On this episode of The Medium Rules, Alan is joined in the HBA podcast studio by Alex Blum and Peter Lyons, respectively the CEO and CIO of the NYS-based security token platform, Atomic Capital. Atomic Capital is split up into three lines of business – advisory, broker-dealer, and investment bank/capital raising. In this episode of The Medium Rules, Alan and his guests walk through the basics of security tokens, i.e., what are they, how are they sold and how are they traded? Alan then engages Alex and Peter in a more philosophical conversation related to global inequality, disruption, decentralization, and anarchism. Both Alex and Peter have deep experience in the global non-profit/NGO sector – Alex at the Peace Corps and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Peter at the World Economic Forum. We hope you're both engaged and educated listening to this conversation, and if so please rate and share The Medium Rules. Finally, some of you may have noticed HBA Media & Tech's “Podcast Pick of the Week” which we do every Friday. Please send us your #PPOTW suggestions to themediumrules@hballp.com and, if we use your suggestion, we'll send you a The Medium Rules black, v-neck T-shirt. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How can we define and identify seismic-grade disruption? Is this recognizable contemporaneously, or only with the benefit of hindsight? And if there is some kind of taxonomy of disruption, some kind of map or workflow template we can apply, can we convert these insights into actionable mandates across both investing, startups and organizational behavior generally? On this episode of The Medium Rules, Alan is joined in the HBA podcast studio by Leonard Brody, an award-winning entrepreneur, venture capitalist, public speaker and best-selling author. Len is currently the co-founder and Executive Chairman of Creative Labs, a joint venture with the Creative Artists' Agency, where Len oversees the building of new ventures for some of the most well-known celebrities, athletes and political leaders globally. In addition, Len is authoring a new book in partnership with Forbes entitled “The Great Re:Write” based on the successful documentary series (4 million views) of the same name which Len produced in partnership with Forbes. Len is also a highly-sought after public speaker, lecturing at institutions such as the G8 and The United Nations. We hope you enjoy this thoroughly entertaining, lively and very warm conversation covering some of the “big” questions in tech. LEARN MORE ABOUT LEONARD AND HIS PROJECTS:The Great Rewrite - http://bit.ly/2zjvLfZCreative Labs - http://bit.ly/2DM6xuuLinkedin - http://bit.ly/2Kmi5Fv Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kim Kardashian was recently featured on the cover of Business of Fashion with the headline “The Age of Influence.” “Truer” words may never have appeared in print. Indeed, the influencer economy on Instagram alone is worth an estimated $1 billion and rising with a bullet. While deals with the top influencers can be worth millions of dollars, there is a widening sweet spot for so-called MicroInfluencers (loosely defined as having between 10,000 and 100,000 followers). A widely read article on Medium's The Startup blog unabashedly asserts that MicroInfluencer Marketing is “The Game in 2018”. In fact, MicroInfluencers are in many ways more valuable to brands in that they tend to have a more loyal and engaged follower community. Alan is joined in the HBA podcast studio by Alia Ahmed-Yahia and James Bosworth, co-founders of The Spyglass Collective. Spyglass is a collective of experts in marketing, content and business development working with design and experience-centric brands on marketing, content and strategy. Alia is also a fashion influencer under her handle The Style Scout, with 15k Instagram followers. James and Alia lead an in-depth discussion of the key drivers of the “MicroInfluencer Economy”, including what it takes to become a MicroInfluencer, how brands measure MicroInfluencer reach and engagement and plan campaigns, the increasing power of the MicroInfluencer economy and where influencer marketing is heading in 2019 and beyond. We hope you'll tune in, listen and watch this conversation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode of The Medium Rules, host Alan Baldachin is joined in the HBA Podcast Studio by Oliver Mitchell, Founding Partner at Autonomy Ventures, to discuss all things automation. Alan asks "The Robot Rabbi" to predict the timeline in which fully autonomous vehicles will roam our streets, whether batteries are to blame for the seemingly "slow rise" of autonomous vehicles, what autonomy means for smart cities, and much more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With technology disrupting all sectors of the economy and culture, it should come as no surprise that this reality also extends to how we play. On this episode of The Medium Rules, host Alan Baldachin speaks with Walid Fattah, the CEO and Co-founder of the tennis-court booking app, Kourts, Inc. Alan and Walid cover the Kourts platform and functionality, Kourts' go-to-market vision and strategy and its approach to scaling its business, and in particular the unique challenges of disrupting in tennis. Topics also include Kourts' positioning and differentiation as a “tennis” brand from the perspective of both tennis clubs and players, and how Kourts fits in and is differentiated from legacy court booking software as well as other emerging entrants in the market. We also get into the origin story of the Kourts founding team, which you might be surprised to hear ties into what is a burgeoning tech startup scene in Dubai. Finally, as we're taping it happens to be Week 1 of the 2018 US Open here in New York City, so as a speical bonus for the tennis heads among us at the end of the podcast we'll also get into some US Open discussion and we'll be joined by our producer, Reece Brassler. For more information about Kourts, listen to the podcast and visit their website: https://www.kourts.com/.Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It is axiomatic that the big three “over the top” (OTT) streaming services—Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime—dominate what and how we watch television. But how has this revolution in long-form video consumption affected the creative process? How has the new media paradigm altered the way media properties find and build an audience? And what are the some of the opportunities and challenges creators face in successfully navigating this domain? On this episode of The Medium Rules, host Alan Baldachin sits down with John Bedolis and Rich Rosenthal of the hit Netflix food/travel show, Somebody Feed Phil. The show stars Phil Rosenthal—best known as the creator of the long-running and extremely popular network sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. The show features Phil on screen as host and narrator as he travels the great cities of the world seeking authentic culinary experiences and authentic moments of human interaction. Phil has been dubbed the “Borscht Belt Bourdain”, and he brings a very specific sensibility to the show which is part NYC Jewish outer borough (Phil grew up in Queens), part LA, and, like Parts Unknown, part an ode to human understanding derived through cooking and eating. Rich, who is Phil's brother, is an Executive Producer, and John is an Executive Producer and the Director. Somebody Feed Phil debuted on PBS as I'll Have What Phil's Having, and moved to Netflix after its first season. In this, it's third season, the show has found a groove. Gorgeously shot and produced, Somebody Feed Phil is lively, warm, funny and entertaining. On this podcast Rich, John and I will talk about the origin story and evolution of the show and their experiences and observations moving from public network television to the world of Netflix and OTT. Watch Somebody Feed Phil here: https://goo.gl/YNd1C3View Richard's Filmography here: https://goo.gl/8dojTDView John's Filmography here: https://goo.gl/jbMonQ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As blockchain technology evolves, more and more blockchain networks are adopting a “proof of stake” concept with respect to operation and governance as opposed to a “proof of work” concept. But what does this mean, and why is this important? And, further, how should we think about these two modalities in terms of the broader blockchain ecosystem whether it be from a technical perspective or from the perspective of an investor. In this episode of The Medium Rules, Alan Baldachin sat down with two of the four co-founders of the New York City-based startup Blockstake, Inc. to canvas a variety of topics related to the blockchain in general and proof of stake mining in particular. Blockstake is a crypto mining startup solely focused on blockchain networks based on proof of stake, whereby network participants can earn rewards in the form of more network tokens based on “staking” a certain amount of tokens up front. In exchange for staking, these trusted network participants earn the right to run “masternodes” which perform a variety of functions on the network, including transaction verification as well as governance. Tom McLaughlin is the CEO of Blockstake and David Wodka is the COO, and both Tom and David bring a wealth of enthusiasm and expertise to bear in a lively and wide-ranging discussion covering the basics of blockchain technology (hint: think of a decentralized version of the early aughts Napster network), masternodes and proof of stake mining versus proof of work mining, as well as the origin story of how Blockstake got its start. At the end of the podcast, we try and take a step back and look into the future to identify long-term trends with respect to the blockchain, as well as emerging projects that are of interest to Tom and David. Resources:The Masternode Manifesto by Tom McLaughlin - https://medium.com/blockstake/masternode-manifesto-682bf182891aBlockchain Compliance Alliance Mission Statement - https://medium.com/blockchain-compliance-alliance/mission-statement-17841702eb6dThe Crypto Bear Market Manifesto - https://medium.com/blockstake/crypto-bear-market-manifesto-dd2107d925f8 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Alignment: Accelerating Funded Startups and the Agency of the Future”With the proliferation of funded e-commerce startups focused on the direct-to-consumer, how is brand created and how can startups adapt to the changing tastes and trends to reach consumers and drive sales? Further, what are some models for agencies to reinvent themselves to not only survive, but to thrive as the media landscape evolves? How can agencies be better aligned with their clients and drive success both for the client and the agency stakeholders? The Medium Rules host, Alan Baldachin, is joined in the HBA Podcast Studio in New York City by Evan Kraut, who runs Grey Adventures for Grey Group, and Guy Poreh, founder and CEO of Playground. Grey Adventures is best characterized as Grey's “skunk works” team, focused on developing innovative products and services that fuel new revenue streams for Grey's brand clients, its partners and the agency itself. And Playground is a “record label” for startups which takes an “immersive” approach to partnering with funded startups on sales and marketing to “accelerate fame”. In this episode of The Medium Rules Alan, Evan and Guy cover such ground as the success story behind Quip, the intersection of frontier technology and the traditional agency model, branding issues related to legal cannabis businesses, and, finally, some thoughts about what the agency of the future might look like. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Notwithstanding the accelerating advance of technology, or possibly because of it, humanity seems to be an “Intertidal” moment whereby the norms, institutions and in many cases the leaders we have long since trusted are in turbulence. There are many reasons for this anxiety, co-existing as it does with mind-boggling technological, economic, and social advancements. “Longpath” is a mindset that is quickly gaining cultural traction as a means of thinking and acting designed to foster connections with one another and with our future selves, allowing us to make the decisions necessary to ensure the human species flourishes and the planet thrives. The Medium Rules host, Alan Baldachin, is joined in the HBA Podcast Studio in New York City by Longpath Labs founder and CEO Ari Wallach to discuss the organization's philosophy, its work, and its ground game for promoting long-term thinking as a decision-making modality. As Ari explains, Longpath Labs is both an incubator and a movement builder dedicated to bringing Longpath thinking to address both humanity's greatest challenges as well as the more mundane day-to-day challenges we face as parents, teachers, coaches, community leaders, business leaders, and social and political activists. Show resources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjkrKA1cVdU https://www.longpath.org/ari-wallach Episode Webpage (link to hballp.com/blog) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.